About the Poet

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Dignity to all not just terrorists like Dylan Roof

Perhaps it's time for
African-Americans to dominate the police like Track and Field, NBA and NFL. If
you see the way the police arrested Roof, the Charleston terrorist killer -
that a suspect is to be treated humanely until a court of law proves the case -
you wonder why African-American suspects are not treated the same way by
European-American police officers. But we all know why!

People get surprised or even
horrified by the behavior of these police officers. Yes, it's wrong! In Africa,
we call their behavior, tribalism. No one - may be a few - in Africa treats his
tribesmen the same way he treats people from other tribes. This is basically
what these police officers do. They treat their own gently - in most cases.

This of course doesn't make it
okay. But if you don't expose these people to see others from other tribes or
races not as a threat but human beings with dreams like theirs, you can't blame
them. A mathematician can't blame a historian for being afraid of mathematics
unless a mathematician explains to the historian why he should think otherwise.
A physicist will argue that philosophy is a waste of time but he'll quote a philosopher
when he wants to appear wiser, or when he wants to relate to his audience. A
European-American will despise Chinese in America but he doesn't know that
Chinese make about everything he uses in America. He goes to a grocery store
and smiles at a African-America clerk but he thinks less about the fact that
he[the clerk] looks about the same as that young man he sees on the street and assumes a
thug only to realize that that kid with a hoodie, headphone and baggie pants,
is a Masters student in a local university.

We live in a world where we
want others to know us but we don't want to know them. But when they act in a
manner that shows they don't know us, we start to wonder. Jieeng people want
Naath people to know them but don't want to understand Naath people but when
Naath people refuse to know them and assume wrongs things about them, they
start to wonder. Simply know one another!

Whether it's in South Sudan
with tribalism or racism in the US, the key is let-us-know-one-another. The
history of the African peoples is not taught to people of European descent yet
we expect them to appreciate the humanity of African people in America. You
can't blame someone for something they don't know. And the judge in whose court
Roof was arraigned treated Roof with dignity when he [the judge] is known to have used
racial epithets in his court. He asked people to treat the victims’ families
and Roof's family in the same manner.

I doubt he’d do that if the
killer was an African-American. He’s just identifying with his kind, the kind
he’s familiar with.

If African-Americans dominate
the police, then European-Americans will think twice before acting with
heavy-handedness on African-Americans. African-American police officers who
stereotype their people would start to change if good officers start to treat
African-Americans with the dignity that was shown to a terrorist: Dylan Roof.
Don’t expect good treatment from people who can’t identify with you if they don’t
know you or are not comfortable with you.

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ANGELINA & ADUT ( A Novel)

Leadership, given what is happening now in South Sudan, and generally in Africa, fascinates me. And it fascinates me not in a good way but because of the sociopolitical and socioeconomic ills facing the African continent and most of the so-called 'Third World.' To me, South Sudan, now, is a classic case.Rebellion by disaffected politico-military leaders and repression by the government of South Sudan in Juba have stunted institutional development and leadership growth. This has made service provision almost irrelevant as political survival has taken primacy and supremacy. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

‘Black’ as an Identity Oversimplification and Mockery

Black as a universalized cultural identity of the African Person (AP)* is a residual effect of slave and colonial mentality; a racial/race paradigm. It is a malady I call, conservatively speaking, stuck-in-the-past syndrome of color constraints. Black could be an on-the-street ‘social identifier’ of race figures not a meaningful phenomenon of deep cultural identification on a universal scale.

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The questionnaire below is for the book I'm writing on leadership and the factors behind the South Sudanese conflict. I would want to know from South Sudanese and other interested parties what they think.

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SELF-ESTEEM AND DISCRIMINATION

As someone who grew up in war conditions and lived as a refugee for a long time, I'm sometimes considered by many people in the 'west' to be prone to (or have) low self-esteem, be poor or illiterate. Living as refugees or displaced persons, who depended on the good will of others put people in a situation where they don't think much about themselves. But that's not everyone though.

As I stood by our front desk at my place work talking about Race and Identity in relation to my book, Is 'Black' Really Beautiful?, the issue of why many African peoples in North America become so over-sensitive when racial issues come up! For many rational people, this owes its origin to slavery and racial segregation.

But one of my coworkers, a person of European descent, was surprised to realize that her 'black' friend, a very intelligent woman, easily becomes irritated by simple things she [friend] considers racist. The friend considers any mention of a watermelon racist; and complains a lot about 'whiteprivilege.' This means that discrimination is considered something 'whites' don't face because of 'white privilege.' In any discussion between 'blacks' and 'whites', 'white privilege' issue comes up!

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RACE AND HEALTH

May 27, 2018 - Race permeates our society and it affects almost all aspects of our lives, private or public. Whether we embrace it or dismiss it, it continues to rare its ugly head any time issues of interest come up. It’s controversial and some people prefer that we don’t talk about it not for what it means but for what it does. But nothing can get solved if not discussed. It’s the way of the world.

May 27, 2018 - Juba town is the seat of the National Government. The host is Jubek state Government. With the decentralized system of governance adopted, we have a municipality administrative unit running the affairs of Juba. Simply put, if there is anything that does not go well in Juba town and its surroundings, it is the Municipality that bears the blame for what may be a dereliction of duty. Now, if you see the internal roads, they are deplorable and impassable.

April 11, 2018 - Leadership, given what is happening now in South Sudan, and generally in Africa, fascinates me. And it fascinates me not in a good way but because of the sociopolitical and socioeconomic ills facing the African continent and most of the so-called 'Third World.' To me, South Sudan, now, is a classic case.Rebellion by disaffected politico-military leaders and repression by the government of South Sudan in Juba have stunted institutional development and leadership growth.